IHOp The Hopping only starts when you want to complain

Centennial IHOP 1340 Centennial Ave. Piscataway, NJ 08854

3 of us went to IHOP for a quick dinner tonight (Saturday, January 23, 2010).

We were seated immediately as only 10 tables were occupied. We were given menus. They must have thought that we were having a hard time deciding what to order as it took our waiter 20 minutes to come over and ask for our drink order. I know what you're saying, why sit there like a boob for 20 minutes?? Just because I wanted to see how far this would go.

A few minutes later our waiter reappeared to ask us for our order again, as he had forgotten it. 5 more minutes passed and our drinks finally arrived. He took our food order and left....he left my wife to stir her hot tea with the arm from her glasses as we were given no utensils. She finally had to wave someone down to get us all silverware.

As everyone around us was getting their food, I continued to look for the hidden sign that read "being punked"...what other explanation could there be??

After another 15 minute wait, our food came out...well most of it. Our Smiley Face pancake arrived with a yogurt stick that was warm and runny, which my Granddaughter refused to eat. My Wife's crepes arrived sans the Hollandaise sauce. My Nut-n-Grain pancakes arrived without my eggs, sausage and home fries. By the time my eggs, sausage and home fries got to me, my pancakes were begging for some heat to melt the butter.

The first two words out of our servers mouth were a continual "I'm sorry". At some point, I'm sorry just does not get the job done. He should have brought over his manager, Jody. Trouble is, she was missing in action, attending to some special guests in the back of the restaurant. Looked to us like she was feeding her family.

We asked for the check and headed to the register to pay...guess what?? No one was there to take our money. After waiting again, one of the waiters came over to take our money. Upon hearing us complain, he too apologized. Not his fault, nothing he could do. Good thing for us there was a big 8.5"x11" sign with an 800 number asking "How did we do??". 24/7-365 give us a call to let us know.

I called the number listed 1-800-775-8434. A sweet sounding woman answered and asked me to tell her the state and city in which the restaurant was located. I told her Piscataway, NJ. She replied that she could not help me, that I would have to call the Corporate Office. I'm sorry, what did I just call, the children's table on Thanksgiving?? She gave me an additional number to call 1-800-241-4467. I called this number and got a recording saying that they were only open M-F 8-5 PST.

You can bet, I'll be on that phone at 11am EST....or maybe I'll play right into their hands and forget:-)

UPDATE!!!

At 11am EST 1-25-2010 I called the second 800 number. After hitting prompt #1 I heard the announcement that the call might be recorded for "quality and training purposes". Then SILENCE followed by a screechingly loud fast busy signal. Call was dropped:-(

I immediately called back and this time a young lady answered the phone. After hearing my tale of woe, she gave me a incident number and promised that I would be hearing from someone up the line. Incident # 322480. The wait begins....